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ForumsAs a self employed computer technician, you shouldn’t be afraid of turning down certain computer technician work. I have turned down a handful of jobs in my time as a technician but one particular time I remember was when I was called out to a courier company that has a central base about 1.5 hours away from me and they called me out to de-dust some computers.
I drove out to their location and once I arrived onsite I found out that these computers they wanted me clean are actually 4 servers. In the end, I had to turn down this job. Heres why:
In order for me to get the sides off these servers, I would need to power them down and take them out of the server enclosure.
Now, I am obviously not going to start shutting down servers until I find out what role they are currently filling. I asked the manager and apparently this courier company has about 400 trucks driving around the city picking up and delivering various items. The dispatchers in this building assigns “jobs” for the truck drivers saying that they need to pick an item up from one address and drop it off at another. These jobs are assigned various tracking numbers with information about who the client is, whether they have paid etc.. All of this information about these jobs is kept on one of these servers.
At the same time, there is a staff member watching a big map of the city where there little truck icons with numbers on them moving around the map. Apparently all of their delivery trucks are GPS tracked and they know where any of them are at any given time. This allows the company to be more efficient as they can assign a delivery job to a truck actually in that area. Again, all of this data is routed through another one of those 4 servers. It appears that some of these servers are also running a custom Linux build (or at least something I have never seen or heard of).
I asked the manager about the technician who usually manages these servers and it turns out their usual technician is away on a holiday in Cambodia. This is why they called me to clean the machines otherwise they would have just used their usual guy.
My last question to them was how long has it been since these servers were last rebooted and the manager said “a long time”. Now, I could shut down these servers, remove them from their rack, take the sides off and give them a blast with compressed air, but what happens if they don’t boot up correctly into their custom Linux OS?
Can you imagine the damage that would be done to the business that currently has 400 trucks driving around town with all the data about what they have and where its going on these servers? They couldn’t even call in their usual guy to fix it in a timely manner since he is in Cambodia. They would be well within their rights to sue for some serious loss of income.
I wasn’t confident in my abilities in getting those servers up and running if there was a problem so I told them that I wont be able to do the job and why. Even though I would have lost money because I have spent 3 hours getting there and back plus the cost of petrol, its just not worth getting sued if something went wrong.
If you are out of your depth, don’t be afraid to turn jobs down. Sure, you may take a hit to your ego but if you explain why you have to decline, the client will most likely appreciate and respect the fact that you are looking out for them. Besides, its much better than getting sued into oblivion.
Yeah that’s a very good point. It would have been nice to know they were mission critical servers before you got there lol! Good information though. Thanks
Excellent advice, Bryce. I, too, would have turned down this job, so good work (or not seeing as you didn’t do the work)
I had one similar to this years ago. Yup Bryce, I turned it down.
I trust my instincts on the phone, and in person. If something doesn’t feel right, I don’t do the work.
The real question is, why was this so critical that they blow off the servers while their IT dept/IT guy was in another part of the world?
I understand cleaning, but their IT guy should have done this before he left, or done it after he got back. He should have made sure “dust” would not bring the entire company down.
I can only assume these PC’s were overheating, but they should havebeen doning this for awhile unless someone was cutting sheetrock next to the servers (I have had this happen before, and had to spend a night at the server facility blowing servers out, sweeping, and replacing AC filters because of some idiot employee not asking and saying it was “cool” to use the server room as a place to cut sheetrock)
“Sued into oblivion.”
Good call.
Good judgment call.I try to get as much information as possible before I embark on the trip
I’m never afraid to refer a job on. It’s too easy to get into deep water.
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread…”
Dedust while it works, if it’s a case of over heating that could have caused a reboot anyway.
I heard a story about a guy that was dusting ATM , and had to chosse the right compressed air bottle due to conductivity and safety.
Do someone has any info on that ?
The story sounds a bit fishy. I wonder if they expected a problem so they called someone else in. It just seems strange that they would not wiat for their guy to get back from vacation to clean them. After all, waiting even a month for cleaning would not endanger the systems. I would not have touched them either. You had no good idea what their configuration was so you did not even know if they must be booted in sequence, etc..
Good call on this one. I rarely ever turn anything down, but this one I would have for sure.
Very good call, sounds to me like it was a sting.
I’ve seen it before when I worked in the stores department of a computer manufacturer. The managers knew there was major problem luming with system and called in a independant company for maintenance. The system failed to reboot and then argued that they had caused the problem.
If you have any doubts about a job, don’t take it!
Surprisingly I know a few on-site Technicians who don’t have their client sign a service agreement. Sued to oblivion indeed.
Sadly, it’s not winning the suit that’s the problem: it’s the cost of a lawsuit period.
If you feel you can’t end up with a win-win service situation just don’t do it.
Honestly, you did a good thing turning down the offer. Most of us would have done the same. But there are people out there who would probably said yes in a blink, most of the times money beeing the primary issue.
Regards.
Smart move, and a great lesson.
i need you to ‘dust’ my servers, b/c my ‘regular’ pc tech is away in cambodia…
“no?” … “well could you just ‘touch’ them while your here? so we can at least get fingerprints for court evidence…?”
LOL.
It does sound like a set up…
Good advice, Bryce. It’s why I stick to residential repairs, mostly. I know my limitations and don’t hesitate to tell my clients that they really need someone more qualified to address their problem, when that is the case.
Even with residential customers, I will sometimes decline a job if it gives off bad vibes. Still need to learn how to make some customers understand that payment for previous assignments was for services fully rendered, not a retainer for unlimited future telephone support.
Bryce, it may not have been a ’sting’ as Julian feared, but an opportunity for the company to bring in someone else as a trial, based upon low confidence in their current tech. They may have been concerned that their servers weren’t being properly maintained, and wanted either an opinion, or to see what new blood could/would do. Obviously somebody knew their servers were not being maintained properly. It doesn’t make sense to call in somebody 1.5 hours away for such a pedestrian task. Maybe they heard of your reputation and wanted to give you a shot? You never did say what the response from the customer was.